Count
by wolfraven80
Summary: AxH. Post TAC. Contains SPOILERS for The Atlantis Complex. 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.' Holly stifled a groan and halted in the doorway, trying to decide if she should just turn on her heel and leave.


**Warning: The Atlantis Complex SPOILERS!**

This story takes place _**after**_ the end of The Atlantis Complex. Please read at your own risk.

And yes, if you're wondering, I ordered the UK version of the book from Amazon UK since it came out two weeks before the US version.

Oh and in case you missed it... **SPOILERS!**

**

* * *

**

**Count**

_Sonnet 43_

_How do I love thee? Let me count the ways._

_I love thee to the depth and breadth and height_

_My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight_

_For the ends of Being and ideal Grace._

_I love thee to the level of everyday's_

_Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight._

_I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;_

_I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise._

_I love thee with the passion put to use_

_In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith._

_I love thee with a love I seemed to lose_

_With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,_

_Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,_

_I shall but love thee better after death._

From _Sonnets from the Portuguese_ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When Holly stepped into the room and heard a voice, she thought at first that it was Orion.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."

She stifled a groan and halted in the doorway, trying to decide if she should just turn on her heel and leave. She could come back later after he'd had another round of meds. But something in his voice as he continued to speak stopped her. "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's most quiet need, by sun and candlelight."

In spite of herself, Holly found she was replaying the lines, counting words. _Ten, ten, nine, eight..._ It had to be Orion and yet... "Artemis?" she said finally when the voice had stopped. "Is that you?"

He'd set down the book he'd been reading from in his lap and was looking at her. He smiled wanly. "Yes. Please, do come in." He gestured to the chair next to his bedside. She came and sat, trying, as always, to ignore his pallidness and sunken eyes. How could he look like this already? It had been only a matter of days. It seemed that the magical detox had taken its toll on him. Her eyes flitted instead to the book. Poetry. "I suppose you were expecting my counterpart?" Artemis said. And then, with a shudder. "Weren't you, Holly?"

Seven and three made ten. Multiples of five. She had never truly realized before now how fluid his normal speech was. But then, compared to the halting phrases that he choked out during some of his episodes, even Mulch would seem eloquent. He had better moments, but his mother claimed most of those, which might or might not be in Artemis's best interest. Holly was determined to see Artemis well; Angeline Fowl seemed bent on making him normal. Either way, the obsessive counting was better than the fits of paranoia.

She forced a smile onto her face. "I'm glad it's you. I see enough of Mr. White Knight as it is."

"Oh?" Artemis said with an arched eyebrow. "It seems to me that you flee the room whenever he's about." He paused and Holly found herself holding her breath, hoping he'd forget to count, that their banter could distract him from the numbers. "Very quickly," he added, wincing.

_Fifteen. Three times five._

She groaned. "Can you blame me?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"Hmm? Oh." She shook herself, trying to focus on Artemis, on what he was saying, not on the way the illness made him say it. "Yes, I was expecting Orion when I heard that first line. You heard him spouting that before, I suppose?"

Artemis nodded and shifted in his jumpsuit. An orange prison jumpsuit. He had complained mightily the first day, which was not surprising. What frightened her was that he had stopped, as if he'd decided that the matter was not worth expending energy on. "The line has come into popular usage but, in fact, it originates in a nineteenth century poem by Elizabeth Barrett." He cleared his throat. "That is, Elizabeth Barrett Browing." His shoulders were slumped and there was none of the cockiness she was used to when he delivered a lecture. She reached out and took his hand in hers. "I find it quite soothing."

"Soothing?" Her brow crinkled. "Not all the lines add up to ten words. Doesn't it trigger the OCD?"

He raised a finger, flashing an incisor, a hint of his old vampire smile. "Ah but you see it is written in iambic pentameter. The lines," he explained, "are based on ten syllables, with five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables."

"Fives and tens," Holly said.

"I'm afraid I'd be wholly incapable of reading Blake's 'The Tyger' in my present condition as it's written in tetrameter."

"In fours?"

Artemis shuddered. "Yes. Exactly." He tried to leave it at that and managed for a good three and a half seconds before adding, with a sigh, "Exactly right, Holly." She squeezed his hand. She was not used to seeing him discouraged. It was simply not in his character. All through their adventures he had been driven by an unflinching determination. But now...

"Just be glad you didn't develop _cantusermology_ as a secondary effect or you'd be talking in song lyrics."

His brow furrowed. "Is that in fact possible?"

Holly's lips twitched. "In rare cases."

"Really, Holly," he said straightening against his pillows, "it's most unkind to try to have one over me in my condition."

"I notice that your condition didn't keep you from hacking into Dr. Argon's files."

Artemis shrugged, nonchalant. "I wished to see whether the doctor was as much a blowhard as he appears." She almost smiled. He was nearly himself again... save that, as she played back his words, she counted fifteen of them.

"This isn't going to help you," she snapped. "You know better."

"Whereas dating your commanding officer is a stroke of genius."

For a moment the abrupt change of topic left her speechless. Which she supposed was the point. He was in better form than she'd given him credit for – in spite of the fact that he had delivered the line in ten words.

"It was only one date. _One._ He asked me, I said yes, and we went out. That was it. I thought you were an expert at counting by now. Surely you can keep track?" His sense of self-preservation remained sufficiently intact that he held his tongue. "And stop trying to change the topic. Hacking into Argon's files is not going to help you. I thought you wanted to get well."

"I do. But I also wish to know what I'm dealing with. Argon's files were mixed to say the least."

"Artemis," she said warningly.

"I'm confined in a fairy mental ward. I would like to exercise a modicum of control over my situation, illusory as that control might be."

Twenty-three, twenty-four... Twenty-five. She peered into his face and was not surprised that his eyes drifted elsewhere. "Isn't the organizing enough? The counting?"

The wan smile had returned to his lips. "You've gotten very good at keeping count, haven't you, Holly?" She bit her lip before she could snap at him to stop using her name as filler even as she felt herself flush. _I'm keeping count almost as much as Artemis. Frond help me!_ "The counting," Artemis continued, "is dictated by the illness. The hacking is something I would do in good health, as you know."

Her gaze drifted to the pile of books on the bedside table, arranged in a pyramid, each book painstakingly aligned with the others, and set exactly parallel to edge of the table. Artemis had it in him to save the world from ecological disaster but instead he was relegated to these obsessive, pointless tasks – by his own mind!

Holly sighed. "The thing about Trouble," Holly began as she finally looked up again to Artemis's face, "is that he's simple." Artemis raised an eyebrow and she batted him on the arm. "I mean he's not complicated."

"Whereas I am rather... complicated?"

"I'm glad you haven't lost your keen sense of observation."

He fidgeted with the book cover, opening and closing it repeatedly as Holly forced herself not to keep count along with him. "I'm surprised you didn't take Orion up on his offer then. He is the very definition of simple. Though I'm certain he'll deny the fact when you see him next."

"He's a part of you, Artemis."

Artemis went on as if he hadn't heard her. "It's no wonder that fool, Orion, would choose this poem. He could pronounce the lines without a smidgen of abashment." And then he raised the book and read from it again. "I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise." Artemis leaned back against the pillows heaving a sigh that seemed to drain all his spirit along with the air from his lungs. He seemed like a rag doll, worn from too much use by a careless child. "As men strive for right," he murmured.

Holly's hand clenched spasmodically around his. "You can hate yourself for a while, Artemis, but then you just have to get over it. The rest of us did."

This comment did draw his attention, and a hint of a smile curved his mouth. "Not so, at least if I'm to judge by Trouble's reaction to my continued presence."

"Those of us that matter," she amended. The smile that graced his features warmed her heart. But there were things that remained to be said. "Orion _is_ a part of you," she said again. "And don't try to object," she added as his mouth opened to make some smart reply, she had no doubt. "I did some research of my own about the Atlantis Complex. He's made up of all the things you ignored or dismissed."

"Heaven help me," Artemis said. "All those romance novels I published as a child have returned to haunt me at long last." He paused to count and seemed satisfied.

Twenty, Holly thought. It was difficult to discuss a serious issue with someone who felt pressed to pay more attention to his word count than to what was being said.

"Artemis, we need to talk about this seriously. About Orion."

Torn between forcing the issue and letting it drop, she was surprised when Artemis raised the book again for a moment and then, after glancing at it, raised his eyes to meet hers directly as he spoke. "I love thee with the passion put to use on my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith."

As he spoke, his mismatched stare held her in thrall as surely as would the _mesmer_, though she knew he had not a drop of magic left in his body. "I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life. And, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."

As he came to the end of the poem, Holly shuddered. How could he speak of death so openly and yet be paralysed by the number that he believed was its harbinger? She met him stare for stare as she said, "It had better not come to that. I can't do without you, remember?"

She leaned in and hugged him tightly, the lines of the poem dancing at the back of her thoughts, along with that familiar mismatched stare. Tall as he'd gotten, she found her ear pressed against his chest and for a moment she simply revelled in the sound of his heartbeat. It was strong and steady... if a bit rapid. Tentatively, his arms wound around her to return the hug. He murmured something. She thought it might have been "let me count the ways."

A chime pinged and they broke apart. Artemis grimaced. "I have a session with Dr. Argon shortly," he said. "I'm being reminded to prepare myself. Apparently we madmen are considered a touch senile as well and prone to forgetting our appointments."

_Thirty._

"I should go," Holly said, straightening.

"Yes, I suppose you should."

She leaned in again to kiss Artemis on the cheek and then hopped down from her seat. But she paused before she reached the doorway. "Get better," she said, turning to look at him again. And then, with a grin, "Before I start to think this is all a stunt you're pulling to get a chance to study our technology."

He smiled his vampire smile of old, eyes fixed on her. "I can assure you that your technology is not what most interests me, Holly."

_Fourteen!_

She hid her surprise behind a cocked eyebrow and resisted the urge to ask just what was crossing his Atlantis-befuddled mind that could so distract him from his word count. After all, he was, as Orion had put it, a 'teenager with hormones running wild,' and there was something about the way his eyes hovered over her that made her decid it was perhaps safer not to ask.

For the time being.

* * *

**The End**

**A/N**: Seriously, the next time I write a post-TAC piece Artemis is going to be drugged up; sticking to multiples of five for his dialogue is absolutely stifling.


End file.
